“Gavriil,” Callum said.
Marchenko looked over at him. It was clear from his look of surprise that the last few days on Harmsworth had also done a number on Callum’s face. “Callum,” he said with a smile. “You…” he held his hands out to indicate Callum standing there, “…for Jamie.”
Callum nodded. “You, for Anton and Natalya.”
Marchenko reached out and shook his hand.
Koikov eyed them both with undisguised suspicion, then he leapt up, grabbed the bottom rung of the escape ladder and began hauling himself up. At the top, he spoke into his radio collar, waited for a response and then flung the hatch open to reveal a disc of swirling grey-white. Rifle shouldered, he scanned across the roof before climbing out and signalling to the others.
One by one, the survivors made their way up the ladder. As he emerged, Callum was greeted by the reassuring sight of two dead creatures, both with single bullet wounds to the head. Beyond, he could just make out the rest of the group crouched in a huddle a few paces away, and he crept over and joined them.
Marchenko was cradling Darya, and Callum knelt next to him and took her hand.
“She is will be okay,” Marchenko whispered, in his familiar broken English. “The heart,” he spasmed his fist in front of Darya’s chest to indicate a strong heartbeat, “and the breath, is good.” He gave a reassuring smile. “This I promise.”
“What about the other soldier?” Ava said. “Are we just going to leave him?”
Marchenko seemed to understand her question, and he shuffled restlessly.
“Private Tsaritsyn is dying,” Lungkaju replied. “We cannot help him. Starshyna Koikov has given him some drugs to help.”
They watched as Koikov emerged from the bunker and peered back down through the hatch. He was tall, but the supernatural shadow cast around him in the mist gave him another two or three feet in height as he turned and signalled to Sergeant Marchenko to move out. He then dropped his legs back down onto the ladder.
With a final nod towards Marchenko, he disappeared back into the bunker and heaved the hatch closed after him.
Chapter 16
Gunship
1
With the others on their way to meet the chopper, Koikov wasted no time finding the fuse wires. Earlier that day he’d run them from the two wads positioned above the opposing external doorways and threaded them through the ventilation grills into Chamber 2. He now produced the manual detonator and began stringing the wires to the two nodes.
He had never planned on being a hero. In a perfect world he would have escaped with the rest of the team and detonated the charges remotely. But the world was far from perfect – Koikov knew that as well as anybody – and the remote detonator had been aboard the other hovercraft when the Albanov had blown. Once again, the island had decided it would take no prisoners.
Still, it was no big deal. Things got fucked up when you relied on remote technology. Here on the ground, he could more or less guarantee an explosion. And what an explosion! That amount of C4 was meant to reduce the bunker and everything in it to dust. Even better, the sheer number of dragons that had taken the bait was beyond anything he could have hoped for. With one twist of the trigger, he was going to take out half the colony.
He had just finished wiring up the detonator, when he became conscious of a low groan. Private Tsaritsyn was stirring. His face was colourless, his skin and clothing slick with sweat. Shit! Why hadn’t Ivanov done as he was ordered and put the poor bastard out of his misery?
Tsaritsyn’s body shook violently, as if he’d been dowsed in freezing water. Then his eyes flickered open until he was staring up into Koikov’s. In obvious agony, he reached a shaking hand out.
Koikov hesitated. The youth reminded him of Dolgonosov: the same narrow, babyish face and dark features, the same look of innocent confusion, even the same grotesque bulge to his dying eyes. He took the private’s hand.
With surprising strength, Tsaritsyn pulled his hand away before reaching back out.
This time Koikov could see that he was gesturing not towards his hand, but towards the detonator. The private’s lips peeled apart. His voice was barely audible: “M-my turn.”
Koikov stared down at him.
“My turn,” Tsaritsyn repeated. “Not yours, Starshyna.”
Kneeling down, Koikov picked up the blood-streaked rag from beside Tsaritsyn and mopped the sweat from his brow. His mind raced. This wasn’t what he’d imagined as he’d reclosed the escape hatch behind him, prepared to never have to open it again. The emotion was beyond his ability to define. Was it relief that he might not have to die? Was it disappointment? Was it guilt that his leadership had brought Tsaritsyn and so many of the others to such a hideous end? Or was it shame that he was now considering allowing a young man to die for him? Perhaps it was all of them.
He dropped the rag back down and took Tsaritsyn’s hand once more, holding it firmly. He hesitated again, disgusted at his own indecision. Then, at last, he pushed the detonator into the soldier’s palm and folded his fingers around it. Tsaritsyn brought his hand back and clutched the detonator to his chest.
For what seemed like an eternity, the two men said nothing. The clamouring of the creatures had grown louder and louder around them, and their collective stink was wafting through the vents and poisoning the already stale air.
“You know how to work it?” Koikov said at last.
Tsaritsyn nodded.
Koikov placed a hand on his forehead. Then he climbed slowly back to his feet and stared down at the young private. He brought his hand up in a salute.
Tsaritsyn’s arm twitched and he nodded again. “H-hurry.”
2
With Sergeant Marchenko at the controls and the two snipers from the ridge safely aboard, the hovercraft roared across the runway towards the extraction point. All Callum could see were the backs of the soldiers’ heads and the gusts of grey-white rushing in between them. Darya was draped across his lap on the back row, still unconscious. Behind them, Corporal Aliyev manned the rear-mounted machine gun.
Nobody seemed to know what the hell had happened to Starshyna Koikov. Was it a breakdown? Was it all just part of the plan? Either way, his absence had been felt by every last one of them as they’d lowered themselves from the roof of the bunker and silently boarded the hovercraft.
Marchenko called back over his shoulder.
“Two minutes,” Lungkaju translated. “Then we must climb on foot.”
A screech sounded, and Corporal Aliyev swung the machine gun around and unleashed a volley into the murk. Callum flinched at the sound of the barrage, watching as the muzzle flashes pulsed through the mist like sheet lightning.
The other soldiers joined in, putting down small arms fire and slinging grenades out into the hovercraft’s wake. Angular shadows broke the haze to either side. Shrieks sounded left and right as rounds found their targets.
Lungkaju: “One minute more, my friend. Just be brave.”
Callum glanced back over his shoulder just as the mist lit up. A tremendous explosion ripped through the air and a tidal wave of light, sound and heat rolled over the hovercraft, sending it into a spin. Callum was thrown to the floor as the craft swept around out of control. It skidded in a huge arc, the air cushion deflating, grinding the hovercraft’s chassis along the bedrock. It skidded along, sparks erupting where the metal frame ground against rock. Then it shaved past an outcrop and spiralled to a halt.
“The bunker,” Lungkaju shouted, jumping down from the craft. “Koikov has destroyed it!”
Ears ringing, Callum clambered back to his feet. “Was he still in there?”
“I do not know,” Lungkaju said. “But we must hurry now, Doctor Ross. The helicopter will arrive soon. We are nearly there.”
As the two men dragged Darya down from the hovercraft, Sergeant Marchenko and the remainder of the
troopers maintained a defensive formation around them.
“You are okay?” Marchenko called out.
“I think so,” Callum replied. Still partially deaf, he bent down and scooped Darya up into his arms, then they set off at a blistering pace up the side of the moraine.
By the time they reached the summit, Callum was panting with exhaustion. His lungs burnt, his muscles ached and his leg wound felt fresh again, as if the claw was still embedded. But as he peered up into the swirling mist, all exhaustion, all pain, all negativity was swept aside in one magnificent downdraft.
3
The rescue helicopter was landing. First to emerge was the glare from its headlamps and under-carriage lighting, weak at first but intensifying as it made its cautious descent. Then came the line of its landing rails, followed by its nose and cabin, and finally its tail. The noise from the rotors drowned out everything as they whipped the surrounding mist up into a funnel.
Callum hugged onto Darya and yelled out with joy. After everything they’d been through, he could hardly believe that it was here. “We’re going home,” he whispered, kissing the side of her cheek. “We’re going home!”
As the lights from the helicopter penetrated the mist and bathed the cracked and bloody skin of his face, he could feel the weight that had been squatting inside his chest leave him in a sudden rush. In the glow of those lights, with the rotor-whipped mist buffeted and beaten into submission around him, Darya felt weightless in his arms; he could have carried her forever. The pain in his leg was a distant memory. What pain? What creatures? What island?
He looked across to see the soldiers cheering, some jumping up and down despite their exhaustion, others collapsed on their knees with a mixture of gratitude and disbelief, just watching the descent. Corporal Aliyev and the medic who had cared for Darya were locked in an embrace, while two new faces, presumably the two snipers, shared the same ear-to-ear grin as they punched the air and waved their arms triumphantly at the descending helicopter.
Callum caught Marchenko’s eye. The gentle soldier smiled across at him and held his thumb up. Callum smiled back, and they watched together as the helicopter finally touched down.
It was smaller than Callum had expected, more like a gunship than a troop carrier, its white-painted exterior dripping with armaments. It appeared to have two sets of rotor blades, mounted one directly above the other, no tail rotor and its windows were blacked out. Still, in that moment nothing could have mattered less. It could have been a microlight, a hot air balloon, a magic carpet for all it counted. If it was airborne and it could bring this nightmare to an end, then it was the greatest thing in creation.
With Darya draped in his arms, Callum staggered towards it. With every step he could imagine himself back home. He was sat with Jamie. What were they doing? They were doing nothing, beautiful nothing. Just sitting, just being father and son… television on… half-eaten tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream – they both agreed Cookie Dough was best – in each of their laps… he was watching Jamie read his comic books… he was watching as Jamie skipped a stone from one side of Loch Ness to the other…
It’s just a stone, Dad.
A few more steps. A few more steps and he was on his way home.
He was on his way home as the side-mounted machine gun swivelled towards them.
He was on his way home as the side-mounted machine gun opened fire.
4
A hail of bullets sprayed in an arc across Callum’s shoulder.
But… the killing was over… I was on my way home…
As reality hit, he flung himself and Darya to the ground. From the shadow of the helicopter, he looked back and saw the first bullets tear into Sergeant Marchenko’s chest. The smile on the gentle soldier’s face became an open gasp of shock as the bullets peppered his flesh. The force lifted him off his feet and sent him reeling backwards, his back arched, his chest coughing up a cloud of blood.
With a hideous polyphonic rasp, the bullets sliced through Corporal Aliyev’s back and shoulders, unzipping the flesh and passing through into the medic. The man’s throat opened up as the bullets pulverised the top of his chest, almost severing his head. The snipers’ stomachs turned to red pulp as they waved frantically, then collapsed against each other in a heap, their bodies seizing, seeming to throb under the continued strafe.
A bullet passed through one of the soldiers’ eyes, another through his ear, then the centre of his forehead, leaving his grin unchanged as he toppled onto his face. As the others turned to run, the bullets found their legs, blowing out their ankles, shredding the meat from their thighs and ripping into their backs. As they stumbled down, the bullets criss-crossed their shoulders, necks and heads, and one by one, in quick succession, their faces hit the freezing rock.
The universe crawled. Sound vanished. Callum could only watch as the men that had saved his life lay crumpled over one another, their limbs twitching, their remaining eyes wide with shock. He closed his own eyes in disbelief; when he reopened them, the team would be clambering up into the helicopter, alive and well. It was all just a figment of his exhausted imagination.
But as his lids crept back open, the scene of carnage was unchanged. The only people left standing were Lungkaju and Ava, who had gone to ground just behind him, both unharmed. Lungkaju wore that same look of intense pain and anguish that he had at the death of Fenris, while Ava’s tear-streaked face bore dumb incomprehension.
Instinctively, Callum ran his hands across Darya’s body. Not a scratch.
With a final, sadistic pass over the mangled corpses, the gunfire ended. The machine gun barrel was now silent and smoking, pointed directly at Lungkaju. With his eyes glued to the twin-muzzle, he took Ava by the hand and climbed slowly to his feet. “Doctor Ross. Are you hurt?”
Callum grunted and shook his head. The world had fallen out from under him.
The helicopter’s side door opened and a Russian voice boomed out over the PA system.
“He tells us to get on board,” Lungkaju said. “We should do what he says.”
The cabin was cramped, much smaller than that of the Kamovs. Like a robot, his mind still clouded with shock, Callum lay Darya on the floor between the two opposed rows of seating and slumped down next to Ava.
The door slid shut.
The images of what he had just witnessed played over in front of him, and he watched them, powerless to turn away, barely conscious of where he was or what was happening around him.
Opposite him sat another man. He was tall and dressed in a neatly pressed navy-blue uniform. His back was turned as he leant in-between the two front seats and spoke loudly to the pilot, but Callum recognised him even through his daze, and the realisation brought him crashing back to earth.
“Doctor Ross. Doctor Lee.” Volkov beamed, turning to face them. “It is so wonderful to see you both again.”
Chapter 17
Data Stick
1
Wonderful was not the adjective Callum would have chosen. Disturbing, maybe. Confusing, for sure. He went to speak, but he was unable to. His brain cried out for answers, but his tongue felt like a lead weight.
“Come now, Doctor Ross,” Volkov teased. “If this is truly the limit of your communicative abilities then I am afraid I must cancel my application to the University of Aberdeen.” He sniggered.
“You… you murdered those soldiers,” Callum said, regaining the ghost of speech. His tone was so naturally hate filled that he could hardly recognise it as his own. “Marchenko and his team, you just… gunned them down… in cold blood.”
Volkov sneered, “As an educated man, Doctor Ross, you do surprise me. You must surely understand that there are no rights or wrongs in this fairy-tale world of ours. Faith. Fact. Fiction. Reality itself. They are all determined by one thing, are they not? Perspective. These were not saints. These were professional killers. Mercenaries. They h
ad blood on their hands, each and every one.”
“They saved my life.”
“Do you imagine that the families of the many young mujahedeen fighters that these soldiers have brutally cleansed from the Caucasus would share your appreciation? Tell me, what makes your horror any more relevant than their elation?”
“But why, Mr Volkov?” The voice was Lungkaju’s. “Why did the soldiers have to die?”
“Everybody must go down with the Albanov,” Volkov snarled. “Otherwise it is… awkward.”
This made no sense. Go down with the Albanov?
“What the hell are you talking about?” Callum said. “Do you know what happened to the ship?”
Volkov waved his hand dismissively. “I know rather a lot about what happened to it, Doctor Ross. It was me that gave the order to destroy it.”
Callum gasped. “You did it?”
“It was my design,” Volkov replied. His tone was conversational, as if he were chatting over coffee. “Not to force the issue of perspective, but the deed itself was carried out by none other than your friend and colleague Mr Daniel Peterson.” He shot a glance in Ava’s direction.
Callum felt her twitch beside him. As if awakening from a dream, she eased her grip from Lungkaju’s arm and stared at Volkov. Her look of torment sent a shiver creeping along Callum’s spine. Dark crescents hung beneath her eyes as she peered through a veil of matted hair. “You’re saying it was Dan’s fault what happened on the Albanov?”
Volkov’s eyes lit up. “Ah, Doctor Lee. I was hoping that you would join in the conversation. It may shock you to learn that your paramour Mr Peterson was an eco-terrorist. Membership of the EIA team was his cover. His objective was always to destroy the Albanov.”
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